Tag Archives: nuit blanche

Since Nuit Blanche on October 4th 2014, artist Lisa Anita Wegner has been performing as Thin Blank Human with her face and body completely covered in a white spandex suit. She talks about the surprising experiences of her audience interactions these last weeks as she talks to Fritz Snitz.

In the weeks leading up to Lisa’s third and last Nuit Blanche installation TRIANGLE: Ascension into Another Golden Age, Lisa discovered bending light with mirror film, a practise she calls Light Painting. Her mind was blown open so wide from this discovery she never recovered. In the days leading up to the event Lisa was not able to decide on an outfit for Mama Dada/ Space Guide. Several days before Nuit Blanche it all came together when Lisa found a white spandex morph suit and she never looked back.The Thin Blank Human came to life.Q: On the eve of your Performance/ Projection/ Sculpture installation TRIANGLE: Ascension into Another Golden Age you were interviewed by local news and walked once to The Black Cat as The Think Blank Human, with only a headset and GoPro camera her your head. Tell us about that. A: My outfit really wasn’t coming together, and when I saw the morph suit I felt like I’d found it and I decided to put my original Space Guide outfit on a mannequin and be The Space Guide’s Soul. This also felt right for the light painting that I was excited to do. I decided I was the spirit of Mama Dada who travels through space and time. In the suit I felt comfortable and free, the only thing is I really can’t see. I had an interview with local news and I wore just the suit, the headphones and a GO Pro on my head. I noticed during that quick interview that people stepped and leaned away from me when I approached and talked to them. And stared ay me with with open mouths. Someone on Dundas Street said “that’s a dude” as I passed. I walked once to The Black Cat from Haus of Dada and got similar reactions. The wind was cold on my body and I had an impulse to put a dress over the white morph suit for my own warmth and comfort. Without testing it in advance I put a Mama Dada dress over my suit and went back out. I spent the rest of the night in a performing in a white morph suit and a dress and more obviously a woman I got friendly reactions and TRIANGLE: Ascension into Another Golden Age was a a wild success. That night Thin Blank Human was born.Q: And then you performed a Strip Tease called Nothing To See Here. A: Yes later in October I performed Nothing To See Here at The Canadian Alternative Arts Collective (of which I am proud to be a new member) and here is where the gender issue started to become interesting. That night I didn’t speak. I gestured to the writing on the back of my Flight Suit and then would do various strip tease dances out of the suit. At first an older man said ‘You are spectacular, can I ask if you are a man or a woman?” I answered “I am a woman” and he said “really?” and stared at me longer. I said “yes my name is Lisa” and he seemed not to believe me. During this packed event I stripped out of the flight suit many times. A second man came over and said to me “If you don’t stop that, I’m going to punch you in the face.” I was surprised and responded playfully but didn’t stop. Third guy said “I don’t want to see a man strip. Stop it it’s fucking disturbing.” I said out loud “I am a woman.” I overheard another man say “that is not a woman, no woman would dance like that.” I also heard “no woman would wear that.”Interesting. First of all who cares? These guys care. I was immediately reminded of friend and artist Steven Joseph, who was my MUSE for TRIANGLE, he is a male who is given a hard time on a regular basis by males who get angry with him for looking like a beautiful woman. These small examples led me to believe that I want to further experiment with gender and the morph suit. So my female body shape and female voice do not trump the idea that I’m a man. – October 27 2014.

Fritz Snitz is arranging for Lisa to perform NOTHING TO SEE HERE in New York City in 2015 following a series of performances in downtown Toronto. Tonight for Halloween Haus of Dada presents a Screening/ Performance/ Installation FREE SURGERY on All Hallows Eve where Lisa will be performing as The Faceless Dr. Wegner.

My 2013 Nuit Blanche piece Queen of the Parade curated by Patrick McCauley was a collaboration with Vanessa Lee Wishart which showed my work on an international stage and changed my life. This year is my third and last doing Nuit Blanche, at least for awhile.TRIANGLE: Ascension into Another Golden Age is my Inner.Space send off. It is a three location Ascension Experience: Projection/ Sound/ Wind / Performance/ Sculpture +InterGallactic GUESTS. The team has come together so elegantly and while there are always unexpected bumps in the road we are now in the home stretch. I am thrilled to bring this version of TRIANGLE to you. I have been experimenting all year with installations at Belljar Cafe, Moniker Gallery and The Film Buff. Having said that I might take a version of TRIANGLE to ARTEL PHX next year.

Born from a few hard weeks of c-ptsd cognitive problems, this new improved projection light show at The Black Cat is perhaps the most amazing thing I’ve discovered in my experimenting with bending light. I have discovered a new element that takes my projections to another level.

I have an installation of gauzy curtains and netting in a womb shape that the audience enters into. With industrial fans and multiple directional projections in the gauze, when I tested it as part of a local art festival, it was extremely successful despite not being able to hear the healing sound track by Marshall Dragun. So I have a **special sound experience** for The Black Cat: Full Surround Sound brought to you by Sennheiser HDR170 and Haus of Dada. We are still looking at some rentals for Quadrophonic Surround Sound for The Belljar Cafe, the last and most relaxing of the venues.

Haus of Dada : The Invitation

The Black Cat: The Experience

Belljar: The Exhalation

Carolyn Tripp is my partner in visuals for TRIANGLE. She is the Executive Director of the Parkdale Film and Video Showcase and she will be designing the clear, clean visual environment for Belljar: The Exhale. She will also be designing and executing the TRIANGLE art that will link the locations.

Marshall Dragun has worked with me all year on the soundtrack. The intent of the sonic accompaniment for TRIANGLE is aimed to re-establishing, in practice, similar principles of intended positive bio-celestial realignments. With the use of binaural solfeggio frequencies and isocrhonic tones, as well as sound samples captured from space, the journey is crafted with base frequencies that are believed by some to have a positive fundamental effect on the human experience and on life as we know it. The sonic journey is tied into the ascension process by moving upward through the scale of the 9 basic fundamental sacred healing tonal frequencies (174Hz, 285Hz, 396Hz, 417Hz, 528Hz, 639Hz, 741Hz, 852Hz and 963Hz). Ascension is ultimately attained by harmonizing the mind,body,soul through one experiencing the entire upward scale of these tones; thus allowing for the re-establishment of ancient celestial realignments ie. The New Golden Age. Special musical guests are Stephane Vera (pictured) and Aris Plampe.

I am also very excited to be working with my TRIANGLE Technicians Wanda MacRae & Daisy Semkiw Blackburn, performers/ who will pull through the portal with me. Tarqin Richards is my intern who will be Inner.Space Videographer.

My favourite special guest is the glorious artist Steven Joseph who will be my MUSE. I pulled him though my portal into TRIANGLE and he will thrill us with his extra terrestrial beauty and style. Come and catch a glimpse before Steven gets pulled into another level Super Star Galaxy and we mere humans can no longer reach.

After getting Steven onboard as guest I thought immediately of Matthew Del Degan’s LOVEBOTS as another addition to this world. I did a group show with Matthew last TIFF and have been in love with his BOTS ever since seeing them in person. I asked him for a full sized 8 foot LOVEBOT for in front of the Haus of Dada and Carolyn Tripp and I were hoping for an army of the small ones to connect the locations on Dundas. Matthew just told me his good news yesterday that since SPACE Network has done a piece on his LOVEBOTS Matthew is now in demand. So no mini LOVEBOT invasion along Dundas… he has bigger robotic fish to fry. I am hoping his project coordinator Roger can get us the original large LOVEBOT for the haus.

Freeman Audio Visual’s great sponsorship I realized last week, was not the company but our guy Jason Tremblett. Jason changed us a fraction of the listed rental prices and would slip us additional and give us old equipment. He is on long term medical leave and the new guy assigned to us is a corporate sales person with no interest or understanding art. Jason saw the scope of the amazing work we are doing. New guy sees me as a client who has no money. Sad. He offered me a tiny discount and asked why I would want equipment that I can’t afford. I know it’s common to focus so much on money but I feel sad for Kyle- I asked twice if Jason was ok and he never answered. So I think I will say farewell to Freeman and let them get on in their corporate pursuits.

So… I have borrowed enough projectors, screens and media players, now I think we’ll just do a simple rental of the Quadrophonic sound set up. Next week is testing everything and set-up lists. Anchors away! Space ships have anchors too.

Artist Statement

For as long as I can remember, Story has functioned as a gateway, a way of connecting with myself and others and digging down to the truth of experience. Growing up in Toronto with German as my first language, working in theatre was my means of overcoming shyness and bonding with English speakers, finding common ground in familiar cultural touchstones.
In time, I discovered my desire to express my own stories, and began to explore acting and producing in films. Always searching for authenticity, I was fortunate to be able to surround myself with like-minded people who both taught me and encouraged me to push further with the medium.
After achieving success with my short films, a two-year period of
personal difficulties left me in an emotional darkness; and it was
once again Story and my need to express myself that way, that led me out of it, with forays into intensely personal visual art and film projects that cut even closer to the bone and reconnected me with my authentic self. I am embarking on new multi-media projects that will fearlessly probe for the truth and share the richness and hard-won lessons of my journey.